Flying in from the east, Ridge spotted the campfire first. Then the few low-intensity lights around the camp. Clicking the intercom button, he said, “Camp’s ahead. Should be approaching Terry. Keep watch for his flashlight.” Just then, continuous flashes of light rose from the ground.
“Flashes—eleven o’clock low,” Ridge said into the intercom. “That’s Terry. About three-quarters the way up the mountainside. Above the camp.” A second later, Ridge saw strings of light, from automatic fire, shooting up into Terry’s position. First from the left, then from the right. “Holy Shit, sniper fire from the trees!” Ridge said into the intercom. “And from below! Shit. Shit. Shit.”
The area around Terry looked like an exploding fireworks barge. Descending in the dark, Ridge banked left to see better. He clicked the intercom on, “All that shit on the remote side of the mountain, no people to see, no one to hear, nobody to help, nothing. Just trees, rocks, and—”
Before Ridge could finish, he felt thuds and the bird rocked. The chopper’s tail jerked up. Regaining control, Ridge pulled around left and saw bright lines of fifty-cal automatic fire screaming up from below. He banked right, and dove. Then he pulled up to his left to avoid additional hits. Just then, the lights went out. He still had control, but bullets had severed electric supply lines. He nosed over to pick up speed, to get away. Once level and far from the firing, he glanced at Uncle Sand in the co-pilot seat next to him. Sand, hanging on, pointed rearward. In the back, the twins had their flashlights out and focused on their own left hands. Both were holding coiled rope with four fingers. Their left thumbs pointed at the ground, moving up and down, like Romans clamoring for death at the Coliseum.
Ridge shouted to Uncle Sand, “They want to go in?”
“Yes!” shouted Sand. “They know what they’re doing.”
Looking back at the twins, Ridge saw that both had strapped on shoulder holsters and sheathed knives from their duffle bags. They were still signaling down.
Goddammit! Ridge had seen plenty of chopper assault landings, but he’d never done one. Shit. First time for everything. Here goes. He took the chopper down and turned her around, back toward the camp, using the campfire near the Big Tent as a target. He held course, descended more, and established slow flight at treetop level. Finally, he hovered near a small clearing one-quarter mile out. The Twins threw their ropes overboard. They slid down, leaping to the dirt from ten feet above ground. Uncle Cho pulled in the ropes. Then he strapped back in his seat and Ridge pulled away, gave Uncle Cho a thumbs up. Not half bad for a bird without wings. Then he circled in widening loops around the drop point and followed the twins.
When Tam and Trong hit the ground, they immediately rolled to their shoulders, then to their hips and up to their feet, crouched. They held position cloaked by dense bushes, making sure the area was clear of enemy. Then they zig-zagged through the forest, crouching lower and stooping between thick trunks of trees. As they approached the camp, they used hand signals to communicate. One hundred yards out, Tam and Trong dropped to their stomachs. They crawled, elbows and knees, with pistols ready to fire in their right hands. When they got to the camp, they spotted two bald-headed men, about their own ages, carrying guns and ammunition out of an underground bunker south of the Big Tent. Tam pointed at one, and then himself. Trong moved his head slowly up and down, and flashed thumbs up. Each then approached his victim, sliced his throat, and made sure nothing dropped. They hustled into the bunker. Silent as death. They emerged moments later with two M-16s, extra magazines, and grenades.
Once Ridge saw the twins had it under control, he wondered, now what? Being a quick thinker, he turned to Uncle Sand and shouted, “Now what?”
“Circle Terry’s position,” Uncle Sand yelled. “Shoot the shit outta the bad guys!”
Ridge knew a good idea when he heard one, so he nodded and pointed to the back seat. “Use their rope to tie yourself to the rear seat and blast them from the open side door!” He gave Uncle Sand time to take position, and pulled off target to the southeast. Then he turned around to check Uncle Sand. Not only was he tied in position at the rear of the side door, but Uncle Cho had tied himself to his seat and hung out the forward section of the door. Both had pistols in their hands, taken from the duffle bags.
They were never going to be more ready; Ridge turned the bird and headed northwest toward the camp and Terry. But about three-hundred yards out, the engine started coughing, and the constant whump-whump-whump faded from the big blades overhead. Ridge still had control, but not enough to hover over the mountainside where he last saw Terry. Then he remembered the camouflaged helicopter pad Terry mentioned, south of the Big Tent. It was now or never. Recalling his takeoff back at Torrance Airport, Ridge prayed his chopper-landing skills were less rusty. When he turned to signal Uncle Sand that they were going down, Ridge saw that Sand and Uncle Cho had already strapped themselves into their seats. In his head, he said, This is your Captain speaking. Please remain in your seats for the duration of this flight. Then, cinching his own belt, Ridge focused on business.
He stayed high and turned to set up a straight-in approach. He aimed at the campfire by the Big Tent, which was less bright, but still visible. Descending as he got closer, Ridge wanted to slow down, but knew if he did, they’d be sitting ducks—so to speak. Then he got lucky. Better lucky than good. Looking east of the campfire he recognized a clearing in the woods where he felt, in his gut, the netting hid the pad. Setting up a high-speed approach and then a sudden hover, Ridge went in for landing. Crashing through the net, the chopper hit on one skid. Then toppled to its right side. The windows blasted inward. The blades shot in all directions, making an ungodly racket. But the seatbelts held. Everything went silent. The dust cleared. Ridge reminded himself: Any landing is OK, as long as you walk away. He unstrapped, and joined the Uncles, who were already climbing out the side door facing the night sky and stars peering through gaping holes in clouds overhead.
From his vantage point, Ridge watched the twins race over ground, each pulling a grenade pin and chucking a grenade over his shoulder. The ammunition bunker exploded into a huge inferno. Then with a blistering whoosh, the exploding gases mushroomed, blasting the twins in their backsides, and launching them into the air. But like a synchronized swimming team, they were prepared. Each landed on the back of his shoulder, rolled to his feet and, without missing a beat, continued rushing toward Terry’s position up the mountainside. With M-16s, locked and loaded, they fell in behind large boulders, and started spraying bullets at snipers in the trees.
At that point, Ridge started to run and immediately went down. He tripped while rushing to the twins. When he got up, he checked his jacket for his Beretta and extra magazines, and said, “Got ‘em.” Then he realized he’d left his satchel—and his Sig 357—in the chopper after the crash. Goddammit! Looking back at the bird, he spotted two bald guys with night-vision goggles strapped to their heads. They were creeping up to the helicopter, like maggots approaching a dead body. Then they turned, saw Ridge, and scrambled his way.
Pulling the Beretta from inside his flight jacket, Ridge snapped off the safety. Without hesitating, he pulled back the slide, chambered a hollow-point and shot from a crouched position. The first few smashed the optical scope at the center of one guy’s face. Glass flying, the maggot staggered backwards. Blood blossomed from his goggles. The sonofabitch keeled over backward. Ridge couldn’t dwell on it. Shoot or be shot. Kill or be killed. Combat all over again. He turned to the second guy—now only fifty feet away. Ridge emptied the magazine between his heart and head. But the man kept coming. Ridge reached for his knife, ready to go hand-to-hand, just as the attacker crumbled to the ground. Five yards from Ridge’s feet.
Ridge rammed home another magazine and shot a bullet into the second maggot’s head, just to make sure. Then he swung around and saw Uncle Sand and Uncle Cho, seventy yards away, in a firefight with three goggled attackers. To the other side, closer, a short man in a black trench coat ran behind a bald guy toward a black Lincoln Navigator. Then Ridge spotted a strange boy in a nearby tree watching them like a hawk. Suddenly the boy reared back and hurled what looked like a large bowie knife more than twenty feet. It planted point-first in the back of the bald guy’s neck. The short man froze and watched in horror as the back of baldy’s head exploded in blood, and he collapsed mid stride. Looking at the lifeless heap, the short man in black seemed to make a decision. He ran around the crumbled guy and, hunched over, rushed toward the Navigator, yanking open the driver’s door and scrambling into the vehicle like a cockroach. Meanwhile, the boy in the tree had dropped to the ground and pursued him, jumping onto the rear step, leaping to the roof, grabbing the protruding siderails, and commando crawling forward as the driver smashed the gas pedal and took off like a rocket. Ridge watched in fascination. The boy had a predator stare in his eyes. And, apparently having seen the boy in his mirror, the driver yelled something Ridge couldn’t make out over the noise around him. But it sounded strangely like, “Golden Boy! No!”
Next, obviously in abject fear and having no clue where he was or where he was going, the driver raced the Navigator toward a light. Unfortunately, it was attached to a ramp. In seconds, the truck shot up the short incline and came down with a splash, nose-first into a wide shallow pond. Most of the front seat sank below water, even though the rest of the truck stuck up out of the pond.
As the driver clawed at his window, trying to open the door, the boy jumped off the roof, waded through the pond, pulled out another large knife and smashed the window with its butt. Next he grabbed the driver around the neck with his left arm and yanked the man’s upper body through the window. Reaching out with his right hand and knife, he slashed the driver from groin to throat. The driver’s eyes went wild in disbelief. The boy shouted, “Fuck you, His Eminence!” and pushed the ravaged body back into the truck. Having finished his work, he turned, splashed to the edge of the pond, stepped out, and walked away. North into the woods. Toward the mountains. Never looking back.